Article

2006-04-04 Down Under

Downer: 'No rush' to heal Indonesia relationship

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Posted by Oztrailan 2006-04-04 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Australia has never accepted Indonesia's military conquest of West Papua (formerly Dutch New Guinea), nor its attempt to forcefully convert the local peoples to Islam - which isn't going very well. The locals have many ties to tribes in Papua New Guinea, under the protection of Australia, and have, until the late 1970's, freely migrated back and forth between the two parts of the island of New Guinea. The locals are beginning to fight back, and Indonesia is blaming Australia for arming and helping them. If they are, it's very, very clandestine - I would suspect more aid is coming from the Philippines, who don't want another border with majority-muslim groups. It's a "low-intensity conflict", but it's been going on since 1960, and shows no sign of changing.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2006-04-04 16:06|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2006-04-04 16:06|| Front Page Top

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